Some of our campuses are on fire with predominantly black students running amok, again. The deep rumbles of discontent on these campuses like the Tshwane University of Technology, for instance, can easily be mistaken for a yearning for access to education and training, if you like.
As much as this government is committed to opening the doors of learning and culture, especially to people from disadvantaged background, it must also ask serious questions.
The impression that has been created by these student rumbles and upheavals on some campuses is that some students, especially black, have a culture of entitlement. Thus what is on display is understandable but unjustifiable social rage.
For all its ugly, violent and downright embarrassing scenes that pit the university authorities, police and State against students, it signifies misdirected energy on the part of the latter.
One cannot be glib about this whole crisis as to reduce its meaning to the recklessness, ill-discipline and lack of focus among students from a so-called disadvantaged background.
There is no doubt, of course, that some may have some genuine grievances but at the heart of the upheavals is poor academic performance. It has been said that these unhappy students are, largely, products of the black under-class whose families may earn, per month, less than the R5 000 minimum required for registration fees.
But the behaviour of holding the whole university to ransom by burning tyres, toyi-toying, attacking property and disrupting classes, for instance, smacks of the criminal action of hoodlums.
It becomes very difficult for some members of the public, including their own families, to identify and relate to the plight of these students. Of the students who are affected, why is it that they always tend to be black?
Are we to believe that the so-called Indian, coloured and white students are not confronted by the same problems and thus unsympathetic? Is violence and disrupting campus life the only way the student leadership, if any, can make its voice heard?
Unfortunately, what we’re witnessing on some campuses is the consequence of a culture of entitlement among some students. There seems to be a direct link between poor academic performance and the inclination to engage in misguided political revolt.
This government has put systems in place to make sure that no student, especially a disadvantaged individual, is excluded due to financial constraints. Much as the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is plagued by maladministration and systematic dysfunction, it exists as a catalyst to address students’ problems.
Perhaps what needs to be happening is for students to grasp the seriousness of academic excellence so that they can be intellectually equipped to come up with solutions to their own problems.
Part of the blame may lie with the university authorities themselves for not making sure the system of financial aid is run efficiently. But the upheaval on campuses is difficult to grasp because the students remain trapped in the narrow struggle framework of the toyi-toyi.
The fact that the student leadership is only half-involved in constructive engagement and forward-looking dialogue with government, the NSFAS and university authorities suggests that it could be intellectually undernourished.
Our students should represent the best of what this country has to offer in terms of leadership for the future. They should not only confront authority but challenge themselves on the exact causes that result in many of them being excluded and denied financial support.
Higher Education and Training Director-General Mary Metcalfe has categorically stated that it is poor academic performance that makes it difficult for government to continue assisting poor performing students.
The predictable thing at the beginning of every year now is for us to expect some campuses to deal with student protest over the same issue. The notion that more government money makes it easier for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to study is simplistic — precisely because it focuses solely on the economic dimension.
What is needed is for students, especially the leadership, to pay attention to the academic performance of the students. The common cause of the exclusion due to financial aid has a lot to do with the fact that students are underperforming and not obtaining the required academic points.
There is something immoral in ignoring the academic underperformance of students in class while making a big issue of their economic circumstances. Nearly 20 years after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, we confine discussion about student results to poverty and unemployment in so-called disadvantaged families and communities.
It is now time to look at the content of the character of the students and what they are willing to do to save themselves. Either a student works hard to obtain the required academic points or he or she doesn’t.
And if they don’t they should just face the consequences of their action: expulsion.
Everything has a price.
Sindile, there is another factor here which is missing.
Many of these student are in fact being given the required cash by their hardworking parents, only to squander it on flashy clothing, drink and parties. Then when it is time to pay their registration fees, they awaken to the reality that not only are they going to be excluded from their studies, but also suffer the approbrium and shame of their family.
Theirs becomes an act of desperation to force the loophole that serves the desperately poor to include themselves. This is the reality that none will admit to, especially the poor student who has ripped off his parents and now needs to rip off the education system in order to get away with his shameful behavior.
Your point, that black university students who trash campuses do so because they are failing academically rather than because of an inability to pay university fees, is made verbosely but too baldly. I believe they are the unfortunate inheritors of a culture, the roots of which stretch back to the 1970s, in which destroying or vandalising educational buildings was seen as legitimate political action – a rejection of the education being offered because it was considered to be deliberately inferior. In other words, violent action became the accepted mode for many black students of expressing dissatisfaction with their schools and universities. While many did experience financial strain in meeting university fees, many were also alienated by the culture of the formerly white universities which they were now attending, however difficult they found it to explain that alienation. Then there was the difficulty many had, because of teaching and other resource shortcomings in their schools as well as their relatively poor ability to use English, to cope academically at university. The latter tried helping them with bridging courses, but the challenge was made even heavier by the post-1994 decision to “massify” tertiary education, regardless of the proportion of the age cohort intellectually truly equipped for university study. As a result, the number of years typically taken to graduate with a first degree expanded well beyond the minimum, which increased financial stress on students and their families.
(cont.) Then, too, that some black students seem to possess “a culture of entitlement” hardly distinguishes them from millions of other South Africans, white as well as black. That those causing major disruptions to campus life are mostly not achieving satisfactory academic results may well be true, but do not lay all the blame (if that is the right word, which I doubt) on them. Government, both pre- and post-1994, must be held primarily responsible.
Poor academic delivery has a price:failure.If the education system and all related factors for good academic performance were in place,these students would not for fun go to streets to toy-toy.Bishop Tutu in 1985 once said we were a lost generation.that for reasons I still cannot understand even today.Barbarics overtook the causes of street struggle then and they will do so today but that does not mean the issues raised are not genuin.Go to the life of these students in these black or something unirvesities and see if you can send your child there.Starndards are not the same,conditions are not the same,even subsidy by the government is allocated in this unequal manner.The easiest thing you want to blame is discipline against these poor souls,that is rich,say that to Juju Malema and you will see how serious the plight of these students is
Not many people would have agreed with the notion that “politically-aligned student organizations cause student protests in universities and colleges in the country” and I certainly did not expect to believe this, I wrote in one of my blog entries “Politically-aligned Student organizations cause student protests!”.
I had observed this unfold in my former university, North West University’s Mafikeng campus “between 2006 and 2008 whereby I ended up being shot by a rubber bullet in one of these protests.”
In one of my articles NWU Commission of enquiry must do it work well at Akanyang Africa I mentioned that “The student protests at the [most South African] universit[ies] must be entirely blamed on the politically-aligned (to the African National Congress, especially SASCO) student organizations.”
And my reasons for this accusation, as based on my experience at the campus, were that:
1. “These, politically-aligned student organizations, are at times – especially during fees negotiation process –[were] inconsiderate of the students’ interests they claim to be representing at such meetings/negotiations.”
2. “…most of the time they [were] irrational and always want[ed] to be heard and not hear what the university management” and that,
3. “…the very same politically-aligned students’ organizations push the agenda that puts it in the advantageous position which they will only benefit from and not the majority of students they claim to represent.”
To be Cont…
Cont…
I however acknowledged that these “politically-aligned students organizations have many times if not a few times fought battles that students too have benefited from”.
Sadly, it is during these protests that “the very students – who are claimed to be represented by these organizations – whose academic time is wasted by strikes/protests (unnecessary at times) that could have been avoided (by the politically-aligned organizations) from the start if such organizations had negotiated (in good and not bad faith) strategically and fairly so from the start.”
Put straight: It is as a result of the flawed strategies and ‘not-in-good-faith’ that these “politically-aligned organizations” end losing during fees negotiations with university management which in the end – as it now has become the norm in many of these institutions – poor students suffer.
During protests at North West University’s Mafikeng campus in 2008, many of these “politically-aligned organizations” has called for the university’s rector’s resignation because, as Mail and Guardian reported at the time, “he voted for or against a certain member of the African National Congress [in 2007].
So, to a great extent, I agree with what you have said!
if you can toyi toyi and burn things in order to get service delivery from the local authority, then you should also be able to do the same in order to get the university to do what you want them to do.
people want shiny residence halls with regular cleaning, but they don’t want to pay the higher dorm fees in order to pay the cleaners. oops.
personally, i think *all* university students should take a year off and work on the campuses of the universities that they wish to attend — whether they need aid or not — in order that they appreciate how to make things run on campus. [berea college in kentucky makes you do exactly that; work around the college and the town in lieu of fees.]
@John coldings: “I believe they are the unfortunate inheritors of a culture, the roots of which stretch back to the 1970s, ……..”..
That is now 40 years ago!! We had elections, ANC won several times. We have a democratic chosen parliament with the previous suppressed in the power seats. We live today and not 40 years ago!!
These students are in their late teens or early twenties. How long can 1970 be an excuse for asocial behaviour and destruction of the places of learning they claim to want to attend for their further education?
Do me a favour! Solution? Stop any of these hooligans from accessing a place of learning in SA for the rest of their life.
And -indeed- my heart bleeds for the parents who sacrifice their last pennies to give their child a decent education.
When one gets something for free, then all want the same, even if they can afford to pay.
Our experience of these protests is that it is youth political leaders organising a mob who pose as ‘students’ and they then threaten other students to either join them or they have to flee the campus in fear.
It is all about winning the student vote by force and not about solving real student issues.
Basic political thugery.
Good article.
“culture of entitlement”
This culture is manifesting itself in all walks of SA society where you now have the right to disrespect authority and be guaranteed of protection no matter how much lawlessness and anarchy you sow.
A good academic education and the pride of achievement of earning a degree are of little importance if you are already being earmarked for “deployment” to higher office.
“Oh Africa why do you hurt yourself so?”